May Recap

How long we’ve been here: 7 Months (or 211 days)

Favourite thing to eat:

Dave:   Bejing Duck- I helped my coworkers make it on my birthday- 3 hours of brine, 8 hours drying/cure time followed by 4 hours of roasting till nice and crispy. C’est manifique!

Steph: Fruit- it’s mango season and lychee season!! Some people call Taiwan ‘Fruit Royalty’ because we have SO many different types of fruit, and while they all have different growing periods, there’s fruit ALL YEAR!!

Greatest accomplishment/ Coolest thing this month:

Dave: picking a fresh mango off a tree on the side of the road up a mountain.

Steph: I’ve noticed an improvement in my Chinese- it’s not great, but I can speak some great Chinglish!!

Favourite place you’ve visited/ Favourite thing you’ve done:

Dave: Mango Village in Tainan country- there are mango trees EVERYWHERE! I really like mango- it may be new favourite fruit! (And I got four for my birthday- two different types!)

Steph: Monkey Mountain!! Those babies were soooooo cute!!

Thing you’re looking forward to most:

Dave: The Dragon Boat Festival in Anping (but by the time this is posted, it’ll already have happened!)

Steph: I’m not actually sure!! Our anniversary is the 6^th of June, but since we’re planning a bigger trip later in the year, I’m not even sure what we’ll do to celebrate now!

Favourite thing to listen to: The Wailin’ Jennys. Start with either Glory Bound or Way of Sorrows. Seriously.

Easiest thing to get used to:

Dave:  The heat. We hit +41 in the kitchen for the first time. Because I spend so much time in the kitchen, my body is somewhat used to high heat, high humidity. It makes +38 outside seem almost nice.

Steph: Fish. I’m so not a fish person. But Tainan is a port, so there’s A LOT of fish. And often auntie puts these little dried silver fish in rice or eggs (I eat the same thing for lunch my kindies do). So while it’s not the EASIEST thing to get used to, I no longer gag when I see little tiny eyeballs staring up at me from my bowl.

Something you’ve learned:

Dave: Baking isn’t my strongest suit. But I’ve been able to make a homemade bagel, soft pretzel, French baguette and the VERY challenging sourdough ciabatta bread. (Note from Steph: I ate some of these. If our freezer was bigger I’d keep a running supply in there just for us. When we get home and have a bigger freezer again… I know what I’m filling it with!!)

Steph: How to stitch together my granny squares!

Okay, so it's the rainy season here in Taiwan. 

Grocery shopping with a scooter always presents some interesting challenges... That 'bag' of tp is usually under my arm, and there's a backpack on my back with more groceries. Some days I miss our car, but I know I'll look back on these trips and revel in how easy a car makes it!!

Hiya!!

Dave found some friends at the ark.

Baby mango!! The season is starting!!

Our besties in Taiwan.

Queen of the reflection selfies. And yes, our driver (Amanda) is sticking her head through the sun roof.

Some of Dave's Bus-7 friends on his birthday. 

Wearing my birds in memory of Maya. (Owls in my ears and free (uncaged?!) birds on my scarf).

Dinner date with Amanda.

Top of Monkey Mountain (Wushan) right before we saw the monkeys!!

Monkey see, monkey do, right?!

Dave picked it from a tree on the side of the road. Can't get any fresher! (I then promptly spent the next minute breathing in the smell of fresh mango!)

Sunday afternoon in Anping. I may have stood in front of the bubble stream on purpose.

It was all twisty like a dragon flying!!

So. Many. Kites. You may remember this lady from this post.

Our Branch Manager asked me to take some photos at our 'Mother's Day Fair' (HESS puts one on every year- it's a nice way for kids and parents and teachers to interact outside the classroom, and for kids and parents to just have some fun! We had storytelling, night-market style games, and a craft-type activity or two). It was fantastic getting to shoot an event again, but I'll spare you most of the 100+ photos and just share a couple of my favs! Oh, and the kids were pretty cute too! It was really cloudy but super muggy. Oh, Taiwan and your changing weather!!